Lookin' out my window

It's one of those gray Monday mornings when I really don't feel inspired to creative work. Sermon ideas don't generate. Poems do not prance through my mind. The Newsletter seems a formidable challenge. It is very tempting to just find a nice computer game and play it until its time to go home. So I find myself looking out the window of my office at a world traveling by at break-neck speed. People going places I don't know to do things I don't care. Then an ambulance and the firetruck race by siren's blaring and lights flashing, and I wish I did know where they were going.

Instead I turn back to my computer and begin doing the mundane kinds of things. Update my calendar. Add some tasks to my "To Do" list. Add some folks to my address book. When I look down at my watch, it is nearing noon, and I have been at this for almost four hours. I cannot believe that time has passed by so quickly, doing what I think is nothing. I wonder what it would have been like if I had been on a creative speedway, with fresh, bright ideas coalescing into a brand new sermon or poem. Probably still be almost noon, and almost time to go out into that world and run some errands.

Maybe creativity isn't always necessary for our lives to make progress--but it sure would be more fun.

Think about the routine times that make life move along in between the times of inspiration.